THE MOUNTAINS

ELSEWHERE I SOMETIMES MUST DWELL; BUT IT IS in the Arizona mountains that I live.

Up there, beneath a sky the tint of Dutch babies' eyes . . . enchanted among meadows abloom with wildflowers . . . sur-rounded within ranks of hoary conifers . . . and abided by creatures of water, wind, and wilderness . . . my circle of sense, strength, and spirit finds completion.

I deem it incredible that Arizona's astounding highlands remain enigmatic to much of America and beyond.

Probably today if you strolled Manhattan's Park Avenue and shouted out “Arizona,” the resident boulevardiers would call back: “sand, drought, cactus, heat, lizards.” And you would counter that, on a clear day, almost anywhere in Arizona, mountains dominate the view. And the uplands are so great and numerous, some get lost in the crowd.

Consider Naeglin Rim in the Tonto National Forest north of Young. You never heard of it?

Yet it is so vast that Rhode Island could scarcely contain Naeglin and its flanks. If this existed in Indiana, it would be a national park. In Florida, it would make the Eighth Wonder of the World.

For Naeglin, about 100 airline miles northeast of Phoenix and rising to 7,117 feet above sea level, stands taller than the highest points of 36 of the United States. Moreover, the rim supports lush foliage, including ponderosa pine, Douglas fir, quaking aspen, Gambel's and turbinella oak, box elder (a true maple), Arizona cypress, juniper, and piñon.

Sparkling springs nurture berry thickets and watercress ponds and fertile bogs. Naeglin's slopes and outcrops cradle semiprecious stones and fossils.

Seventy-five years ago, this land south of the Mogollon Rim was one of author Zane Grey's favorite hunting grounds. Elk, deer, cougars, turkeys, coyotes, black bears, bobcats, javelina, quail, and golden eagles still make Naeglin home.

Here and there endure archeological remnants of ancient peoples, and, little more than a century ago, the rulers of Naeglin were the people called Apache.

Snows deeper than a

To be beautiful and to be calm is the ideal of Nature.

THE MOUNTAINS

Continued from page 14 Man is tall have been measured on Naeglin, and, in summer, Naeglin ranks among the most lightningstruck highlands on Earth.

Yet Naeglin, the Anonymous. Why? Because it is dwarfed by adjacent, more massive, more extensive, more lofty uplands.

And within this example, the lie is given to the report that Arizona is mostly a sand-dune desert, covered with cacti and populated by snakes and buzzards. In truth, even in the more arid portions of Arizona, mountains command the horizons.

In the summer of 1966, my daughter, Dian, turned 11, and in celebration we fled Phoenix on a 114° F. day, hauling our horses 220 miles northeast. Ever upward. Up State Route 87. Up and over the Mazatzals. Then via State Route 260 up and across the 7,500-foot Mogollon Rim. Up, up, up to the spongy grasslands and spruce-lined parks of Sheep Crossing at 9,000 feet on the West Fork of the Little Colorado River.

In the thin, chill, sweet air the ponies labored heavenward even more. Our destination: the top of Mount Baldy, at 11,590 feet, Arizona's second-highest peak. (Humphreys Peak near Flagstaff tops out at 12,643 feet.) Lady slippers, bluebells, and columbines crowded the trail, wending under great lava bluffs, devil's rockslides, and picturesque formations. On the way, we sighted mule deer and drank on our bellies from a rivulet so cold it hurt our teeth. We pulled on our jackets while we watched a puffy cloud no bigger than a child's fist billow into a black cumulonimbus filling half the sky.

Then flash! Bombination! We scarcely had time to dismount and tie our horses and hide under our ponchos before a hailstorm beat Baldy like a timpani. How we hugged and howled in fright and delight. And - it ceased as abruptly as it began.

Have you ever finished your lunch with a snow-cone dessert of hailstones and wild strawberries delivered in person by Mother Nature? We did.

For our moment at the sacred Apache apex, I had brought the 1873 description of Baldy written by Capt. George M. Wheeler, Army explorer: "The view from the summit was the most magnificent and effective of any among the large number that have come under my observation . . . .

"Outstretched before us lay the tributaries of seven principal streams . . . four main mountain peaks . . . valley lands far surpassing any I have before seen. The view of the landscape to the east is the most marvelous beauty of form and color. Mountain, forest, valley, and streams are blended into one harmonious

Text continued on page 26

Every cloud-capped mountain is a holy altar. - Thomas Hood

THE MOUNTAINS

Continued from page 20 Few worldwide travelers in a lifetime could be treated to a more perfect landscape, a true virgin solitude, undefiled by the presence of man."

Spellbound and friends afresh for life, we rode off the mountain, never to return, except in the imaginations of a caring, growing-older parent, and, no longer a child, a woman pursuing a career. On Baldy's anvil, Thor forged our strong bond.

So abounding, Arizona's uplands . . . dressed in tens of millions of acres of woodlands: San Francisco Peaks, cinder cones rising 2 1/2 miles above sea level, with permanent ice caves and a patch of tundra and gnarled trees three centuries old when Charlemagne ruled Germany.

The Mogollon Rim, upthrusted southern edge of the regional Colorado Plateau, extending from near Strawberry across the middle of Arizona. Marvel upon the presence of seashells everywhere, at extremely high altitude and hundreds of miles from the ocean.

Far to the north, mystical Navajo Mountain, where tribal gods breathe rarefied air at 10,388 feet. Four other peaks in Navajoland jump up almost as high. Remote Mount Trumbull, towering 8,028 feet, eternally peering into the Grand Canyon.

Then, from Hualapai Peak in the northwest, an archipelago of sky islands arcs in lazy Ss across the southern deserts. Well-watered and vegetated, these peaks welcome migrant wildlife, as teeming atolls attract shipwrecked sailors. Bill Williams Mountain. Mingus. The Bradshaws, dotted with ghost towns.

And the Superstitions, hiding the fabled Lost Dutchman's gold. The Santa Ritas with 200 species of birds, from hawks to hummers. The Pinals. The Pinaleños. The Sierra Anchas, still wilderness.

In terms of life zones, the short drive from Tucson to the top of the Santa Catalinas equals a 1,500-mile journey from Mexico to Canada. The Huachucas, repository of semitropical wildlife. The Baboquivaris. The Quinlins. The Galiuros. The Whetstones. The Dragoons, where the revered Cochise sleeps.Finally, anchoring the state's southeast corner: the Chiricahuas, natural research laboratory and exhibitor of geologic wonders.

Each range would be the boast of a Nebraska, an Ohio, a New Jersey, a Wisconsin. Yet withinArizona, there are so many, it takes a lifetime of mountain living and loving to know them all. As a noble Indian orator observed, "In the end, there is only the sky, and the mountain."